Get Maniacal

Think about the one or two biggest goals you’re striving to hit at work. Got em? Good.

Now, how much time per day do you spend directly working to achieve those goals?

What about your one or two biggest challenges? How much time each day do you spend trying to solve for them?

I bet that when you actually crunch the numbers, most of you spend between an hour or two a day working on these most important pieces. And, that you spend the rest of your time working on checklist-type items and things that just need to get done.

I know this because I’ve seen this. Everywhere.

This makes sense as the big stuff is often really hard to make a difference on. And seeing progress is often harder. But we can’t say that we care immensely about (insert your goal or challenge) and then spend five hours a week (out of the forty, fifty, sixty and beyond that many of us spend working) on that thing.

Do you know that the average American watches approximately twenty-one hours of television a week (I looked through multiple studies, and some had this number at closer to thirty-five hours)? Let’s go with the lower number.

That means that some of us are doubling, tripling, or quadrupling the time we spend on our most important work, sitting mindlessly in front of a screen. Yes, family/friend time matters more than anything, and it’s important to wind down at the end of the day or week. But if we’re only spending a fraction of our time on the things that are hardest, the things that make the most difference, and the things people are counting on us to deliver, what are we winding down from? Checking emails?

Get motherf***ing maniacal about the things that matter most.

Work to design your schedule so you’re on those things all day long. Make the other stuff just that: other stuff that you attend to last.

Get maniacal. Don’t apologize for it either.